For anyone who still has doubts about the power of the internet, check out this AP story about 14-year-old Amy Bareijan. Amy wanted to go vegetarian after watching Meet Your Meat on YouTube, so she posted her own video asking for people’s advice and personal experiences that may help her. The response was overwhelming, to say the least. Check out the story here.

The video that started it all:

Sooooooo, a lot of blogs have been talking about this weird new concept of "Vegansexuals". Some psychologist in New Zealand coined the word after conducting a study which found that some vegans just don't really like to do it with meat-eaters. A high percentage of respondents evidently reported that meat-eaters smell funky. Tucker Carlson reported on the story last week, and made the claim out of left field that being a vegan kills your sex drive. I have no idea where Tucker pulled this myth from (maybe a bad experience with a lethargic hippie in college?), but I can guarantee that if he just finds the right vegan girl, he'll change his mind quicker than it takes him to put on that dapper new tie of his in the morning.

Tucker did follow up the story the next day with a nice piece in which he read our statement on the topic—he claims he hasn’t changed his opinion yet, but he’ll come around. … Anyway, onto PETA's position: We're pro inter-dietary dating for about a million reasons; for one thing, if you're ever going to persuade someone that they need to stop eating animals, you need to be around them, talk to them, listen to their point of view, and, hell, sometimes even sleep with them. Being vegan isn't about being in a club, and while there's nothing wrong with having a preference for someone who shares your views, I wouldn't want anyone to think that giving up meat means you have to drain the ol’ dating pool at the same time. As Tucker pointed out, going vegetarian is supposed to get you girls, not cut off your options.

Finally, on a more personal note, sometimes it’s difficult enough as it is. I'll take it where I can damn well get it.

P.S. Eating meat causes impotence.

We've been getting a lot of calls from people asking what we're going to do about some new websites that are being passed around, called KittyBeef.com and PuppyBeef.com, which are purporting to sell prime cuts from kittens and puppies at discount prices. Well, the simple answer is … we're not really going to do all that much about it at all. In fact, I kind of wish we'd thought of the idea ourselves. For anyone who's horrified by the concept of having puppy chops or kitten nuggets for dinner, I hope they'll go just one tiny step further in their outrage and ask themselves how that's any different from chowing down on pork chops or chicken.

At the risk of getting a little rhetorical here, animals killed for our kitchens are just as capable of suffering as the animals we keep in our homes. They're just as smart, just as loving, and the prospect of the horrors that are inflicted on them by the meat industry keeps me up at night and fills me with the same anguish as reports of people who chain their dogs or torture their cats.

PETA Files reader Dave Cortright passed this hilarious Onion video on to me and I just had to share.

The sad thing is that animal experiments just as absurd as this fictional one still take place. Take smoking/nicotine experiments, for example. We know that smoking is harmful to human health; we don’t need to shove animals into inhalation chambers or dose pregnant rats with huge amounts of nicotine to confirm it. There are countless examples like this, but this was supposed to be a lighthearted entry, so I’ll stop now . . .

Anyway, if you haven’t seen Testing 1, 2, 3 yet, give it a look and let me know what you think.

I got a real kick out of this Bizarro comic someone scanned from their newspaper and sent in the other day, and the wonderful Dan Piraro, the longtime PETA supporter and animal rights advocate who writes the strip, was gracious enough to send me a high-quality version to put on the blog. Thanks, Dan!

PETA India's Campaign Coordinator, Rohini Kamath, just sent me some photos from a couple of protests that she and her colleagues held this week to draw attention to, respectively, the cruelty of the dairy industry, and the hypocrisy inherent in eating meat and trying to save the environment at the same time. Check 'em out:

Bound to a wheelchair and carrying a sign reading, “The dark side of dairy,” PETA India’s cow mascot, Ganga, protested the hideous cruelty of the dairy industry on World Milk Day. The activists also held signs emblazoned with the slogan “Doodh: not so cool, Dude,” and, though it's not entirely clear to me what that means, I'm told that if you say that to someone in Ahmedabad, they'll cut the dairy right out of their diet in a hot second.

And …

Eating out of a giant earth and holding signs reading “You Can't Be a Meat Eating Environmentalist” the PETA India folks held a demonstration on World Environment Day to protest the massive environmental devastation caused by the meat industry.

PETA India — you guys are, hands down, my favorite PETA affiliate. OK, fine, I say that to all the affiliates, but I'm totally smitten with that globe-eating demonstration. Keep up the great work.

This will be an exciting announcement for those of you who are interested in PETA's inner workings—and I've included plenty of cool pics for those of you that aren't, so bear with me. Tracy Reiman, who has been a driving force behind PETA's campaigns for 16 years, has just been promoted to Executive Vice President. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it, "She is a devoted, tried-and-true animal rights activist and a mature administrator." Everyone who works with Tracy agrees that PETA, and animals, are very lucky to have her on their side.

Tracy started out working in Customer Service while she was still in college, and quickly rose through the ranks. She has worked in numerous roles in virtually every department within the organization, and is currently in charge of all things to do with marketing and technology, so she happens to be my boss.

I spent some time searching for pictures of Tracy looking "executive" to suit her new role, but what I came up with was much, much better. Besides, given that this particular organization is one whose core values are creativity, courage, and—almost above all—a sense of humor, I think this is a surprisingly appropriate images of PETA's new Executive VP:

Congratulations, Tracy — you've earned it. Also, please don’t fire me for posting this picture.

It's sad times around the office today. Two of our local volunteers and their friend were killed in a car wreck recently. Here is the tribute peta2 posted this morning:

Thank you, Ben and Cayce, for all you have done to make the world a kinder place.

I just heard about this awesome protest that went down in The Hague, Netherlands, yesterday. Or, I guess that’s Den Haag for all of you cultured folk out there. Anyway . . .

Props to Animal Rights Africa and PETA Europe for the great demo. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear the outcome of the meetings.

Check out this amazing song and video made by Bryan Harrell in support of the Chicago foie gras ban. I particularly love the shot of signs that are popping up all over town because Mayor Daley is pushing to bring the Olympics to the city . . .